Suhail Bhat
Srinagar, Apr 19: Amidst Coronavirus pandemic, the city level technical experts working with ‘Housing for All Scheme’ are passing through trying times as Department of Housing and Urban Development has not released their pending salaries.
The experts lamented that their pockets have started to run dry as all their savings exhausted in the last ten months. They said while the Governments around the world are assuring timely release of salaries to its employees in wake of this pandemic, our Government is acting otherwise.
To extend the benefits of Central Government’s flagship program Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana(PMAY) to Jammu and Kashmir around 70-city-level technical experts were engaged for the implementation of ambitious ‘Housing for all Scheme’ in Jammu and Kashmir. The experts include Project Engineers, Town Planners, GIS Specialists, Training Coordinators, and others. Nearly 14 experts were engaged soon after the scheme was launched in 2015 and 54 more were engaged in 2017.
The experts said that the Government is withholding their salaries at a time when they are in dire need of help. This attitude of the Government, they said, is taking a toll on their families. “We are all trained professionals and have left lucrative jobs to serve our land but government behavior has let us down. These degrees are useless if they cannot help us to feed our families,” an expert said, adding they are having a tough time due to the callous attitude of the state-level technical experts.
An official, when contacted, said that the salaries cannot be released unless Civil Secretariat starts functioning normally. “I am not aware of any funding but their salaries can only be released after the secretariat starts functioning. Nothing can be done till then,” he said, requested not to be named.
The housing scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with an aim to construct about two crore houses in the country within 7 years. People belonging to lower-income groups were the main targets of the scheme.
Housing for All’ is being implemented in all 78 towns and the two capital cities of Srinagar and Jammu in two phases. A total of 66277 beneficiaries have been identified in the J&K under PMAY-HFA (U) including 4583 under the Slum Re-development component, 24523 under Credit Linked Subsidy, 6100 under Affordable Housing in Partnership and 31071 under Beneficiary led Construction with an overall financial involvement of Rs 4024.81 crores.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel